Association last week announced the winners of the inaugural Indies Choice Book Awards. Formerly the Book Sense Book of the Year Awards, the new Indies Choice Book Awards reflect the spirit of independent bookstores nationwide through new categories and a broader range of winners and honor books.

The 2009 Indies Choice Book Award winners, chosen by the owners and staff at ABA member stores during more than four weeks of voting, are:

Best Indie Buzz Book (Fiction): The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (The Dial Press) Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction): The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead) Best Author Discovery: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (Ecco) Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book (Fiction): The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins) Best New Picture Book: Bats at the Library, by Brian Lies (Houghton Mifflin) Most Engaging Author: Sherman Alexie

“On behalf of independent booksellers across the country, we’re proud to announce the first Indies Choice Book Award winners,” said ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz. “Each perfectly represents the array of unique and thought-provoking titles championed by ABA members. We look forward to saluting the winning authors and illustrators at a very festive Celebration of Bookselling Luncheon at BEA.”

Five Indies Choice Book Awards honor recipients were also named in each category:

Best Indie Buzz Book (Fiction) Honor Books

City of Thieves, by David Benioff (Viking) The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane (Morrow) Netherland, by Joseph O’Neill (Pantheon) People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf)

Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction) Honor Books

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, by Steven Rinella (Spiegel & Grau) The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins (Knopf) Hurry Down Sunshine: A Memoir, by Michael Greenberg (Other Press) A Voyage Long and Strange: On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and Other Adventurers in Early America, by Tony Horwitz (Holt) What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami (Knopf)

Winners and honor books are all titles appearing on the 2008 Indie Next Lists, which launched last July, and on the Book Sense Picks Lists from the first half of the year. Most Engaging Author honorees are being recognized for being engaging at in-store appearances, as well as for having a strong sense of the importance of independent booksellers to their communities at large.

Inductees to the first Indies Choice Book Awards Picture Book Hall of Fame will be announced in an upcoming edition of Bookselling This Week, the ABA email newsletter.

About American Booksellers Association

Founded in 1900, the American Booksellers Association is a not-for-profit trade organization devoted to meeting the needs of its core members — independently owned bookstores with storefront locations — through education, information dissemination, business products and services, and advocacy. ABA exists to

protect and promote the interests of independent retail book businesses, as well as to protect the First Amendment rights of every American. The association actively supports free speech, literacy, and programs thatsupport local and independent retail shops. A board of nine booksellers, representing thousands of members, governs the Association. ABA is headquartered in Tarrytown, New York.